I’m here on the couch moping with the cat. Where is my storm?? I really wanted it. I am so ready for it. I mean I didn’t buy bread or milk or anything, but mentally I’m ready for it. I’m ready to cancel plans. Ready to not leave the house for the next 48 hours. Ready to not shower, stay in my pjs, and take intermittent naps all day long. I had planned on making my husband feel guilty for not getting firewood. I was looking forward to that all week. Now I got nothing.

And it’s almost 40 degrees outside. WTF. I think I just saw a peek of sun. So frustrating.

Now I’ll be expected to do things. Empty the dishwasher. Put my contacts in. Get off the couch. This isn’t what America is about! I can’t even depend on weather I was promised.

My daughter drove back to school yesterday so she’d beat the storm up in New York. I bet they’ll get a foot. Or two. Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, you make me sad. I’m not mad at you. Just really disappointed.

Thanks for being you. You weren’t like the best ever or anything – but you were pretty pretty good (in the words of Larry David). It was the year of the Dog. The year for loyalty, consistency and dependability. But it started off with anything but consistency. It started off with a bang.

Bang….my sister’s married! Bang….I had to go to India for work! Bang….a headhunter called with a big job offer! Bang…my sister was pregnant! In between those things were other big things. A beautiful wedding (Jon and Amy!), a beautiful baby cousin born (Norah!), a bestie turned 50 (April!), and so did the heart of our family (Dennis!) – and it went on and on.

Work took me from India, to Aruba, to Ireland – with a pit stops in-between. Work was good. Sometimes it wasn’t good. As it should be.

My kids kept growing. Doing good. Doing some not good. Doing it all. As it should be.

You threw us some curve balls 2018, I won’t lie.

I got distracted by a shiny offer, thought about it for too long – but decided to stay loyal in the spirit of the Dog. Not loyal to a company – but loyal to the people. My people. Shiny and new can’t compete with solid and true. Who knows what the future holds – but for now, it was the right turn.

It also brought some worries. Some sadness. When loved ones get sick – you get sick too. But then you see family coming together, you see all the love, and somehow it gets better. Even when it’s not actually getting better.

The year ended with a bang too. My sister-in-law got engaged a few days before Christmas!

There were also some breakthroughs. For those of you who don’t know me that well, I have been a vegetarian for my entire life. Like the whole thing. No meat, poultry or fish has ever crossed my lips knowingly. I may or may not have had a month in 2004 of eating Pad Thai without knowing it had fish sauce in it, but that’s it. So now, for the first time ever…hold on to something….I am eating Caesar salad with abandon. Anchovies? Who cares! Salt of the sea I say! We’ve even been to restaurants that I know put actual anchovies on their salad (not paste) and I still eat it. Like a champ. And then, last week, my husband and I went to a diner to have breakfast. I ordered my usual omelet. Egg whites, spinach, onions, peppers and American cheese. Side of rye toast and homefries. As I was eating, from the corner of my eye, I spotted it. It could have been mistaken for a piece of well done potato, but I knew better. I’m no amateur. A little piece of ham was hidden under the homefries. Now if this was 2001, or even 2010 let’s say – I would have freaked out. I would have stopped eating and never gone to that place again. You know what I did in 2018? I carefully lifted it with my finger and put it on a napkin and continued my meal. CONTINUED MY MEAL. With ham. Granted I never touched the homefries again but still…there was no scene at the diner. I’m like a new person.

I don’t know if photos help you when you’re reading a rant like this – but they help me. I’ve always been partial to books with pictures. I included some below.

2018, you are free to go. I was never a dog person anyway. Year of the pig! That’s where it’s at now.

I wrote my first blog post in 2012. It was called Nosey, Nosey, Nosey. You can still find it on here if you look. My kids were 9 and 14. I was working from home and needed to do something in the day for just myself. I decided the posts would have no rules. Some were super short with just a picture. Some were longer. Once in a while I’d throw in a cooking post (that’s when I cooked almost every night….who was I?). I would write daily, weekly, monthly. No pressure. Just when I felt like it. It was so much fun.

5 years and 486 posts later I stopped. May, 2017. What happened? What went down? Nothing! Not one thing. I mean our lives are different now for sure. Things are hectic – but things were always hectic. I just didn’t feel like writing (if you could even call what I was doing writing!). So I stopped. I didn’t force myself to do it. And I didn’t miss it.

Until now.

Guess what people? I’m going to start writing again. You may not know it, but you’re my public! And I’m going to give you what you haven’t asked for and don’t think you need. You’re welcome! Enough with the New York Times. You need something less meaty. Less thought provoking. You need a mental break. And I’m just the person for the job. The last thing I’m going to get you to do is think. But you knew that.

Today is 21 years married for Joe and I. Our marriage is finally of legal age. It’s not the awkward, shaky, unstable thing it was when it first started. Don’t get me wrong, it was never in danger. That’s the little miracle about me and Joe. We’ve never doubted that we were supposed to be with each other. He’s the most honest person I’ve ever met and he’s said the same thing to me since I was 19 and he was 21, “there’s no one else for me” – and I believe him.

But loving him all the time and liking him all the time are not the same things. I was away this week for a work trip and when I got back he said,” I really missed you this time. This one was hard.” And I totally got it. I really missed him too. There are some work weeks that I’m skipping out of this house. Excited to have some alone time. Excited to not hear about his day. Excited to have a big, fat bed all to myself at night. And I’m sure he’s equally excited to not to have me around. Doesn’t mean the marriage is ending. It just means we’re human.

This past year I started going through some…..let’s say hormonal transitions. Although I didn’t have the usual signs and signals. Mine came in the form of exploding as soon as he told the same joke he’s been telling for 21 years. Or losing my patience and my mind as he used 50,000 words to tell a 500 word story, get to the point for God’s sake! Also, if I have to hear about the grass on his lawn or the ill-managed roads in our township one more time I’m going to go postal.

But I’m no gem either, lucky for me he doesn’t have a blog so you’ll never know why!

All that said, I wouldn’t want to celebrate this anniversary with anyone else. Death – by each other’s hand or nature – will be the only way we leave each other. Romantic right?

Here’s to many many more years of our perfectly imperfect marriage. xoxo.

These past few months have been a cocoon of work and home and work. The biggest excitement I’ve had is finding a new show to watch (Atlanta!). Other than that it’s been the usual post holiday hibernation. Which I actually love.

But not today. Today I shook sh&t up.

That’s what my husband calls it. We’ve done it before.

Hey we’re in our 20s and have no prospects for the future… let’s have a baby!

Hey there’s a new job that requires us to uproot our family and move to a town where we don’t know anyone…let’s do it!

This is what the salon looked like afterwards. Like a hair crime scene.

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It was so much hair that other stylists came over to talk to my stylist.

“I never get to have fun like that,” they said

“Ugh! My person wanted an 8th of an inch taken off,” they cried

Not me. You could have made a tiny wig with my leftover hair.

Why you ask? What made me do it? I truthfully decided on getting this cut about 2 weeks ago.

Here’s the part where I share the story and you try hard to not think I’m crazy.

For the 25+ years I’ve known my husband he’s tried to get me jewelry. Sometimes it’s completely right-on. Most times it’s…off. This is not news for him to hear. I’m good at a lot of things, but one of them is not pretending. My face shows all my truths instantly. He’s had his heart-broken by my narly look after many an important gift giving moment. Christmas morning. Birthday dinner. Valentines…you get it. I’m horrible. As you can also imagine after years of this kind of emotional gamble – he’s stopped. And I’m totally ok with it. And actually our gift giving to each other has kind of faded. Which sounds sad but it’s not. It’s awesome. It’s a relief. Judging yet? It’s ok. I’d judge us too.

But two weeks ago he surprised me with a set of beautiful, dreamy, totally me earrings. These earrings were made for me. They are simply the best gift I’ve ever gotten from him. The. Best. Almost like he’s waited for a decade to get me the perfect gift.

Cut to today. I started thinking about Thursday, when I’ve asked him to take me and my earrings out for dinner. I can’t wait. But something was off. You couldn’t really see my earrings because my hair had gotten super long and super out of control.

So I decided there was only one thing to do. Chop my hair.

When I showed my husband he laughed and said,”Look at you. Shaking sh&t up”

Well 2016 lived up to all the hype. Like a monkey it was full of energy, erratic and sometimes scary and full of surprises.

But Rooster. I have high hopes for Rooster. I know I don’t have to capitalize the word Rooster – put your red pens away. But I’m just trying to give it the respect it deserves.

Last year I went to a flea market and found a little monkey holding a banana. I brough him home and put in my kitchen and prayed that he’d bring me luck. And he did. The monkey may have caused havoc in the world but for my little world – it was a good year.

When I think of 2016 I’ll think of Kera and all her friends graduating. I’ll think of all the beautiful weddings we were lucky enough to be a part of – Keith and Danielle, Herb and Larry, Marcello and Lorraine, Sweta and Wendall.

So Rooster – Fire Rooster. Sign of dawn and awakening. Sign of hard work and justice. Sign of logic and reason.

I’ve always loved roosters. I know you’re going to think I’m crazy – but I have them all over the house. In fact this past Christmas, my secret Santa even gave me a rooster cookie cutter (Thank you Ty!). I’m not sure I ever thought about why I loved them. But I’ll take some logic, reason and justice. I’ll take being more grounded.

So let’s go people. Time to wake up. Time to get to work. Fire Rooster is here.

Thursday night my husband and I decided to go out on the town! Have dinner, see a late show, like other people do. But a few too many of these went down.

And then, long story short, I went down too. For 34 hours post night out I was out for the count. Coffee didn’t help. Two disco naps didn’t help. I even tried the hair-of-dog…. it didn’t help.

But last night was our book club – and I was not going to miss it. We had a real, live author coming in. We’re hot like that. The book was the wonderful Smiles and Ductape written by my dear friend April’s sister-in-law, Jesse Torrey (did you follow that?).

The book is about the family’s journey after their son Jack develops ALD. It’s sad, happy and full of love. We were having a good discussion by the time Jesse started talking about the latest part of Jack’s story. It involves using medical marijuana. And then our little book club lit up…not literally, just conversationally. We had questions, lots and lots of questions. We became Charlie Rose level interviewers. I’ve never seen us come alive like that. It was hysterical.

And speaking of getting the munchies (just kidding)…

Usually when I go to someone’s home I like to bring a little bite to eat or some wine or both. My mama brought me up right. But did I mention I was exhausted? And old? Luckily for me my girl is home from college and had plans to meet friends for a “fancy dinner”. She had googled an appetizer she wanted to make and like any good mother I offered to buy her all of the ingredients… and then made her to make some for me to take too. I knew having kids would pay off eventually.

Now I love entertaining. I have for a long time. But in all those years I’ve never used Phyllo. Or is it just phyllo with a lower case p? In any case I’ve never used it/bought it/thought about it.

It was a revelation. Easy. Light. Tasty. How come more people don’t talk about Phyllo/phyllo??